


Before the Dawn

by romantic_drift



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Post-Canon, Post-Last Battle, S-Support (Fire Emblem)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 22:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romantic_drift/pseuds/romantic_drift
Summary: "Above Byleth, the flag of the Crest of Flames flies high. Around her, Derdriu blazes. Claude would have cracked a joke about that juxtaposition, Byleth is sure, if he were here."The remnants of their enemies attack while Claude is gone. Byleth tries to deal with his absence.





	Before the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Oh wow, shiny new fandom! I drafted this (very irresponsibly) at work, and then cleaned it up a little, but please forgive me for it being unbetaed.
> 
> The Claude/Byleth paired ending was quite epic but I wanted to see it - I also wanted more cute. Since the game couldn't give it to me, I wrote this instead. 
> 
> Obviously, massive spoilers for Golden Deer as well as Claude & Byleth's paired ending (...but you would probably not be reading this fic if you were concerned about this). If you would like to know the ending's text, please see endnotes.

Above Byleth, the flag of the Crest of Flames flies high.

Around her, Derdriu blazes.

Claude would have cracked a joke about that juxtaposition, Byleth is sure, if he were here. 

Claude may not be by her side, but the rest of her students are. And they fight with all the skills they've sharpened in five years of war, and all the courage they've always possessed, and even in the haze of battle she is proud of them.

Still, Byleth knows—and it is her job on the battlefield to know these things—that it isn’t enough.

Her army is too weary. Too wrong-footed from waking up from dreams of peace to the horns of battle. Too encumbered by civilians whom their enemies have no compunction using as human shields.

Still, she stands in the middle of the fray, and holds the Sword of the Creator high, and fights as if she recognizes none of these things. Above her, Cyril and Leonie circle, darting forward to push the enemies back, and retreating back to report news from the frontlines. 

_The North Gate has fallen! _

_The West Gate is weak. It won’t hold! _

_Reinforcements, Professor, the West needs them now!_

One after another, the grim pronouncements come. But before Byleth can even think of her next move, before she even maps out a route for the closest cavalry to divert towards the West Gate, a flier sidesteps Leonie’s protection and charges lance-first—

“_Marianne!_” Byleth cries. Marianne’s mouth opens, but no sound emerges. The lance pierces her lungs and steals the voice she had worked so hard to gain in an instant, and her body slumps forward, like Jeralt’s did— 

And Byleth pulls the threads of time around her hands, holds them tight, and rewinds, rewinds, _rewinds. _Lysithea’s immaterial dark spikes descend on the falcon knight just as she lunges, and both rider and pegasus tumble out of the skies and smash into the ground. Marianne sidesteps their bodies neatly, unconsciously, the glow of her next healing spell already lighting up her fingers.

Byleth sighs in relief—And then she sways in place. The force of time drags her down, blissful darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision. Her hold on her sword slackens. 

“Professor!” Sylvain shouts, and Felix’s shadow passes over Byleth. He cuts down the enemy swordsman far before his blade can slash down her side.

“_Tch,” _Felix says irritably, as the man's body falls backwards. But his fingers on his sword hilt are pale.

Sylvain pulls up by her, his horse neighing sharply as he jerks the reins to cease her gallop. 

“Are you okay, Professor?” Sylvain asks.

“Yes,” Byleth says. Her sight is still dim and blurry, but when she speaks, her tone is as even as usual. She nods to Felix. “Thank you.”

“I'm usually never one to critique a lady's looks, but you don't look well,” Sylvain says. 

Felix spares Byleth one glance, in between parries against several foot soldiers trying to charge past him to reach Sylvain and her. "You look like the Ashen Demon they call you,” he tosses back. 

Sylvain rolls his eyes, but doesn't disagree. He dismounts, and moves two steps closer. “Let me escort you to the healing caravan, Professor," Sylvain says. 

She shakes her head. “The army needs me here,” she says.

“All the more reason for the healers to check you over. The army can't risk you being—”

“Duck!” Felix barks out. Immediately Sylvain dodges, just fast enough that his assailant’s axe slices a lock of his auburn hair and not his neck, at the same moment that Byleth pulls on the dregs of her magic. _Nosferatu _crackles the air, and the warrior is dead before he even hits the ground.

Her body ravenously sucks in the life energy that the spell pilfered away from their assailant. But it's too little, as meaningful as a drop of water in a leaking bucket, not even enough to replenish the energy expended in the attack. Her world spins.

“_Professor_,” she hears but does not see Sylvain say, his voice muffled, as if from far away. A hand grips her shoulder, just tightly enough to still the swaying of her body.

Byleth swallows. The nausea recedes a little, just enough that she can open her eyes again.

The first thing she sees is Felix striding towards them, his face pinched with anger. His mouth is thin, his eyes uncharacteristically frantic.

_"Pay attention!" _He spits out at Sylvain. "Do you want a meaningless death too?" 

Sylvain doesn't ask who Felix is referring to, who has already died such a death. He only reaches out to smooth a hand down Felix's upper arm, his movement gentle and practiced, no different from how one might soothe a spooked horse. “Of course not," Sylvain says, lighthearted smile on his face. "And anyway, I've got you here so it's not like I can anyway." 

Byleth averts her eyes. 

She is more conscious than ever of the empty space behind her. For a moment, she can almost hear beating wyvern wings and carefree laughter. 

Byleth takes a breath, dispels the phantom echoes, and turns back to Sylvain and Felix. “West Gate, both of you,” she says. 

Sylvain opens his mouth, his expression tightening.

Byleth gives him her emptiest stare.

"The West Gate is vulnerable. Ignatz can't venture close enough to the front to effectively defend our line there,” she says.

Sylvain folds his arms, and exchanges a glance with Felix. Something wordless passes between the two of them, she doesn't quite catch it. But when Sylvain turns back to her, he nods, albeit reluctantly. The two of them set off, Sylvain looking back at her only once as they head towards the West Gate. 

She watches them go, pushes back the darkness, and takes a deep breath.

“For Fodlan!” Byleth cries.

She extends her sword to its fullest length and twists right. Its slashing whip whizzes through the air, tears into the flesh of three fools looking to ambush her at the same time, and retracts back into her hand. Blood drips down the handle. She thrusts it high into the air, for all around her to see it glow orange and red.

“For Fodlan!” Her soldiers shout back.

The Agarthans—the true name of those who slither in the dark, if Hubert’s notes are to be believed—and the remnants of the Empire attack two months after Claude leaves. 

Byleth hadn’t seen them coming.

She should have, as the new leader of United Fodlan. But each day after their victory against Nemesis had been filled with tasks: appeals from minor lords to resolve, legislative bills to contemplate, relief efforts to coordinate. Even the most minor of them had felt to Byleth, who had been raised a commoner, like trying to put out a fire with a spoon to carry water. She had not had the mental capacity to consider the Agarthans, whom she thought vanquished—not until they were at the gates of Derdriu itself, with the defeated soldiers of the Empire gathered around them.

She’d always known her own strengths. Preparing troops, leading soldiers, inspiring others. All that she could do, were as natural to her as wielding the Sword of the Creator. 

But putting puzzle pieces together? Knowing where the shadows lurked, and deducing their shapes?

She had never been good at that.

She had never needed to be.

As a mercenary, with Jeralt, she had fought whom she had been hired to fight, when she had been hired to fight them.

And as a professor—

Well, there had been Claude. 

The West Gate falls, just before sunset. 

Sylvain's horse practically froths at the mouth, Sylvain is riding her so fast and recklessly. Draped on his steed in front of him is a bleeding, unconscious Felix. 

“Professor—I—_Felix—_” Sylvain starts, and then his face cracks with terror, and Byleth is already hastening them towards the medical caravan.

Sylvain’s face suffuses with relief, and he clutches Felix closer as he dashes right past her without ever slowing down.

Byleth sets her face into a grim expression, and turns herself towards the West Gate. There was nothing to be done now but to shore up the resistance there herself.

Between one blink and the next, Shamir and Catherine are in front of her, as if transported there by magic.

They block her path. 

Shamir shakes her head. “They’ve broken our ranks completely at the West Gate. It’s no use.”

The words fall like daggers on Byleth’s still heart. But she only presses her lips thin.

“Then we fall back. Regroup and form chokeholds around the main streets of Derdriu, so that we can pick our enemies off one by one.”

They’ve done it successfully once before. The numerical odds had been against them that time too.

Shamir shakes her head again. “We lost too many knights defending the North Gate. Any chokeholds we could form would never hold.”

“There has to be another way,” Byleth says, and she doesn’t know if she’s saying that to them or to herself.

There always was another way, before. The Divine Pulse always revealed it. The only question had been how many activations it would take. 

But this time, even after nearly ten uses of that power, she sees no opening. The enemy force is larger, better prepared, more vicious. Only one thread of time winds around her finger now, and it’s no longer a secret weapon, it’s a last resort.

“There is,” Shamir says. Byleth looks up. “The Riegans have always been wily. There is a secret passageway that runs from their manor to a hidden grotto equipped with usable boats. You can escape down the coast, make your way to Enbarr, and from there raise the necessary troops to retake Derdriu.”

Byleth does not bother asking Shamir how she knows, how long she’s had this back-up plan.

Shamir looks towards the horizon, then back. “With any luck, dusk will keep them from noticing your absence. Catherine and Marianne have agreed to accompany you. The rest of us will hold them off as long as we are able.” 

Byleth doesn't even pause. “No,” she says. She moves to sidestep both Shamir and Catherine. 

Catherine steps back into her path. 

“You have to go, Byleth,” she says. She towers over her, every inch Thunderbrand Catherine.

Byleth stares back at her, unblinkingly. “I am not abandoning my students."

“What _students_?” Catherine explodes. “You’re not a Professor, you’re the ruler of United Fodlan. They’re your subjects, your _knights_! To die for you is their—"

Shamir puts a hand on Catherine’s shoulder, and squeezes.

“I understand, Professor,” Shamir says. The regret in her voice makes Byleth believe her. “But we do not always have the luxury of dying with our love ones.”

This time, it is Byleth who shakes her head.

With the acrid smell of smoke all around her, it is easy to remember Enbarr. The houses ablazed, the children crying, the Imperial Palace’s floor slick with blood. 

She had not gritted her teeth and killed former students so that she could watch the remaining ones die.

“No,” she repeats. 

Irritation flashes across Shamir's face, replacing the regret that was previously there. She runs her hand through her bangs. 'We’re wasting time,” Shamir says.

Catherine's fingers are wrapped around the hilt of her relic. She doesn't pull it out of its sheath, and she doesn't point it at Byleth. But the threat is there, all the same. 

Byleth takes a single step forward. 

Catherine's hand clenches around Thunderbrand's hilt.

“You can’t risk your life," Catherine says, low.

Byleth’s grip on her own weapon tightens. 

“Step aside, Catherine,” Byleth says. She puts in her voice all the authority of the Goddess, of Sothis, that lies dormant within her.

Catherine’s face sets further. 

Claude left two months ago. For two short, glorious months, his dreams—_their _dreams—had seemed at hand. 

Now, those dreams were on the verge of disintegrating into dust.

Perhaps Edelgard had been right, after all. Perhaps for such dreams to take real form in the world, blood sacrifice had to be paid. 

Byleth had not been willing to make that blood sacrifice, back then.

She isn’t willing now.

_I’m sorry, Claude, _she thinks, and throws herself forward with as much momentum as possible, the Sword of the Creator raised by her right side. Catherine and Shamir stumble back, and Byleth takes the opportunity to charge past. Back into the fray. Back to where her students were.

“Byleth!” Catherine curses. And then she’s jumping over over Byleth’s head, and skidding to a stop in front of her. Byleth slashes her sword down on Thunderbrand, hoping the force will knock it right out of Catherine's grip, but Catherine parries, and the two relics clash in a spray of orange sparks.

_“_Don’t be stubborn!_”_ Catherine grits out. She leans into her blade, and Byleth is forced to take a retreating step back. “Do you even know what would happen to United Fodlan, if the hero of the war were to fall today? To the Church of Seiros, if you were to die, so soon after the loss of Lady Rhea?”

“My students need me here,” is all Byleth says. She pushes forward, and Catherine twists to the right, avoiding the embers that flew where their blades cross. Byleth continues to advance, step by step. The noise of fighting men grow ever louder in her ears as the wind picks up around her, and Catherine’s hold on Thunderbrand buckles—

A glowing orange arrow glances past Byleth’s cheeks and slams into their crossed blades, throwing the two of them and their swords apart in another shower of sparks. Byleth just manages to keep her hold on the Sword of the Creator, and slams the tip of it onto the ground. It drags across the stone, stopping her from back further. Her arms strain with the effort of absorbing the momentum, of staying upright, but she barely registers the pain.

She knows that arrow. Even before conscious thought, her eyes and mind and stillborn heart are searching the skies.

“Who knew my absence would hurt so much we'd have civil war again,” Claude says, his irrepressible grin backlit by the golden sunlight. “Sorry for the delay, Teach!”

Sound rushes back to her, all of a sudden, and she realizes that the growing roar in her ears had been—_cheers. _Incredulous cheers.

Across the sky, Almyrans are descending in dazzling aerial formations, as fast and deadly as falcons. Their axes cleave heads from bodies, their notched arrows bury into hearts, and one by one the Imperial soldiers fall, and the Agarthans turn back into crumbling corpses. 

“You wouldn’t believe how stubborn my old man and his dusty generals are. I had to—” Claude says, and then abruptly stops talking.

He frowns, and hovers low to jump smoothly down in front of Byleth. Her entire field of vision is only Claude and his wyvern’s white wings, gently beating. They were almost too blinding to look at.

“What’s wrong, Teach?” Claude asks. 

She looks uncomprehendingly at him.

He reaches out one hand to touch her cheek. When he pulls back, water glistens on his fingertips. 

“Oh,” she says.

Claude smiles. He reaches out again. This time his palm cups her face, and his thumb settles at the corner of her mouth. He leaves it there, the lightest of pressure.

“I’ll have to leave more often, if I'm gifted with one of your rare smiles every time I return,” he says, and winks. “Though I could do without the tears, I’m not that sort of masochist.” 

“Don’t you dare,” she says, too sharply. His smile widens.

“So you _can_ be dependable, Claude. I’m pleasantly surprised.” Lorenz’s voice cuts in, suddenly, and Byleth comes back to herself. At some point, she wasn’t sure when, Lorenz had ridden over to them.

She takes a step back, and Claude drops his hand.

“Can’t let you show me up, can I, Lorenz?” Claude says easily.

Byleth resolutely decides not to look at Catherine and Shamir, who had undoubtedly witnessed everything. 

Hilda too pulls up on her steed, right besides Lorenz.

“You sure cut it close, Claude!” She complains. The pout in her voice is as it's always been, unchanged from her days at the Academy. “Those undead mages singed my new headband!”

“Sorry, sorry, I'll buy you a new one,” Claude laughs. He swings himself back up on his wyvern, and the pair of them ascends several feet into the air. “But I’m here now, and Teach's to command.”

Lorenz rolls his eyes. He turns to Byleth. “With the Almyrans' aerial assistance, we’ve managed to stabilize the situation at the North gate,” he reports.

Byleth nods. She can feel the tide turning, washing over her and obliterating the taste of impending defeat. 

"Thank you, Hilda, Lorenz. You've done an admirable job," she says. 

“But we've only stopped them from advancing further." Hilda cocks her head, and leans against the hand she's got pressed to her right cheek. "We can't actually push our enemies _back. _There's too many of them, and the creepy undead ones fight like they can't die... which I guess they technically can't."

Byleth nods again. She glances at Claude.

“What did you observe flying in?” she asks.

"They've thrown all their troops into the frontal assault," he replies. "I didn't see a single opening, it'll be near impossible to break their line head-on. But—”

“That means their flank is weak,” she completes for him.

He grins. "Exactly."

She pauses. “So they waited until they knew we had concentrated all our troops in Derdriu before attacking. If forces had remained outside the city walls, we would've been able to take advantage of the weakness in their formation." 

“There are still some snakes slithering about the capital, it seems,” Claude says wryly. “But on the bright side, the tactic reeks of desperation. Today's battle must be all or nothing for them. When we win this, that should be the end of it_."_

_When, _Claude says, not _if. _

“We’ll hunt the spies down, when this is over,” she responds. Then she turns, just enough that she is addressing the rest of their impromptu war council.

“Claude, gather and lead all riders - Almyrans and Fodlanians both - to ambush our enemies from behind. Do anything you need to in order to break through to the front,” Byleth orders. 

“I'll go to our front lines and ensure our defenses hold for as long as you need them to. Hilda, Lorenz, with me. Shamir, provide cover for the flyers. Catherine, close down all escape routes, hidden and unhidden. Ensure no enemy commanders flee."

They all nod—well, Claude salutes, and everyone else nods—and Byleth feels the familiar rush of adrenaline course through her veins. 

"We will rout them out today," Byleth says. She grips her sword tight, the wind at her back. 

By the time dawn approaches, the battle is over. 

The only things left to do are to tend to the wounded, and to count their dead. 

They've won.

“Teach,” Claude says. He loops twice in the air and then slides perfectly to a stop next to her.

“Show-off,” Byleth says.

She wipes the blood from her hands, still shimmering with the glow of white magic, and rises. As she motions for the medics to take the stabilized soldier away, she glances at Claude.

His posture is loose, and his eyes bright. But the corners of his perpetual smile is just a little too taut, the bloodied hands at the nape of his wyvern just a little too tense. 

He’s never liked battles, Claude. He’ll never hesitate to see one through, if it were the only way to keep his allies safe. But he’s never reveled in one, no matter how carefree he seems on the battlefield.

“You should go,” Byleth says, kindly. “The others can see to the clean-up.” 

For a beat, Claude looks at her with considering eyes.

Then he huffs out a laugh. "Fine," he says, then stretches his hands behind him. “But back at you, Teach." 

He shimmies back several inches on his wyvern, and pats the space in front of him. “Hop on, I’ll take you back,” he offers.

She ducks her head so he can’t see her lips twitch. For a moment, the grief and exhaustion from the battle seem to fall away. 

It’ll return tomorrow, she’s sure. But for now, it recedes, just a little.

“How generous of you,” Byleth says. “Will we head straight to Daphnel Manor, or will we first do a loop around the city, so that the troops can conveniently survey us together?”

The Almyrans and the Alliance troops may have fought together today, but they are far more used to fighting against each other than beside each other. Byleth is sure Claude is aware of this, just as he's aware that the sight of the leader of United Fodlan and the prince of Almyra together would substantially help to reinforce the peace -- because by now, even the dimmest soldier must have realized Claude's other identity. After all, even _Raphael _has figured it out.

“You wound me,” Claude says. He puts a hand on his heart. “I was going to bring you back to _Riegan Manor _after our loop around Derdriu. What sort of man do you think I am, to let my fiancé stay at a place as drab as Daphnel Manor?”

Byleth raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you afraid of Judith overhearing you?” she asks. 

“I’m not afraid of her,” he says, airily and unconvincingly. 

Her lips curve upwards. She approaches, and lets him pull her up onto his wyvern’s back. 

In truth, Daphnel Manor _is_ rather austere, and certainly inconveniently-located when compared to Riegan Manor. 

All the great Alliance Houses keep manors in Derdriu. But the city is House Riegan's seat of power, and its ancestral manor sits at the center of Derdriu, directly adjacent to Leicester Forum. 

For the last few months, all Byleth's waking hours had been spent at the Forum, the historic meeting place of the Leicester Roundtable and United Fodlan's temporary center of government. 

Still, with Judith's permission, she had chosen to retire to House Daphnel at night. On days when she had been too tired to make the trek back, she'd slept on her office floor instead.

She'd known it would have been more sensible to situate herself in Riegan Manor. She'd even visited. But despite Claude not having grown up there, each room had felt like it had bits of him tucked away into the corners. The gleaming stairway bannisters, perfect for sliding down on; the baths, massive and Almyran-style; the library, overflowing with books from all across the known world. 

Byleth hadn’t wanted to be there, while Claude was away. 

But now—

Claude kicks his legs against his wyvern's sides, and they rise slowly over Derdriu. He pulls her tight against him.

“You know,” he whispers, “The master bedroom is largest. Since you’re my guest, I’ll have to offer it to you.” 

Byleth can't stop smiling in his presence. When had that become a habit?

“I suppose it wouldn’t reflect well on Fodlan and Almyra’s new friendship, if its leader treated the Prince of Almyra so shabbily," she replies. 

“King," he says, and she stills.

Claude urges his wyvern left, and squeezes her hand. "Long story." He waits until she deliberately loosens again, one vertebrae at a time, to continue. "But that just means our... _friendship _is now even more important. So I suppose we should share the master's. You know, for the sake of our countries."

She stifles a laugh against his neck. "Okay," she says, and lays the news of his throne aside—for now. Instead, she chooses to focus on other, more pleasant things: the wind on her face; the drifting scent of Almyran pines; the sound of Claude's heart, beating strong against her back as they fly over Derdriu. 

She used to think them so strange and foreign, heartbeats. She'd believed that everyone must've found those constant thumping sounds terribly annoying, even dangerously distracting in the heat of battle.

That Byleth hadn't known much beyond swordfighting. Would never have been able to imagine how comforting it would be to sit close, and feel another's heartbeats reverberate through her body, almost as if they were her own. 

Byleth shifts even ccloser, and lets her eyelids drop as she waits for Claude to lead them to Riegan Manor. There, she thinks, she'll wash off the blood of battle in an extravagant bath tub, and walk up gleaming steps, and fall asleep listening to the predictable rhythm of Claude's heart.

Tomorrow, they'll wake up to the dawn together.

**Author's Note:**

> **[Twitter](https://twitter.com/romantic_drift) | [Wattpad ](https://www.wattpad.com/user/rdrift)| [Email](mailto:romantic_drift@gmail.com) | [Discord ](@rdrift#0765)  
**  
Come say hi & find fic sneak-peeks and lots of fangirling!
> 
> Love feedback!
> 
> I may write more. Maybe morning introspection about the future, Edelgard and Dimitri. Maybe some _fun times_ that night. We'll see. Feel free to let me know if you want to see those scenes, and which one your preference is, in the comments. 
> 
> Also, this fanart is totally un-related to me but it fits perfectly with this fic and I adore it to pieces, so please go and admire: [Claude & Byleth on his wyvern](https://twitter.com/ametoya/status/1170320380348645376).
> 
> Claude/Byleth paired ending:  
_"After ascending the throne as the first leader of the United Kingdom of Fódlan, Byleth sought to rebuild the war-torn towns and villages and to help guide the reformation of the Church of Seiros. After a few months of peace, remnants of the Imperial army joined with those who slither in the dark and marched upon the capital city of Derdriu. The new kingdom lacked the power to repel the invaders, but when defeat seemed imminent, a battle cry rang out from the east. Claude, the newly-crowned King of Almyra, led a mighty army that broke through the rebel forces with ease. This show of solidarity forever altered the course of history, heralding a new age of unity." _


End file.
